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Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "There is an interesting read at the Atlantic where Laura Dimon writes that mass psychogenic illness, historically known as "mass hysteria"—is making a comeback and it appears that social media is a new vector for its spread. Mass hysteria such as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693, the most widely recognized episode of mass hysteria in history, which ultimately saw the hanging deaths of 20 women, spreads through sight and sound, and historically, one person would have to be in the same room as somebody exhibiting symptoms to be at risk of 'catching' the illness. 'Not anymore,' says Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has studied over 600 cases of mass hysteria dating back to 1566, noting that social media — 'extensions of our eyes and ears' — speeds and extends the reach of mass hysteria. 'Epidemic hysterias that in earlier periods were self-limited in geography now have free and wide access to the globe in seconds,' says Bartholomew. 'It's a belief, that's the power here, and the technology just amplifies the belief, and helps it spread more readily.' In a recent case, nearly 20 students at a Western New York Junior-Senior High school began experiencing involuntary jerks and tics. Some believe that the Le Roy outbreak was a direct result of videos posted to YouTube by Lori Brownell, a girl with severe tics in Corinth, New York, 250 miles east of Le Roy. The story took off quickly, not just on the local and national news but on Facebook and autism blogs and sites devoted to mental health and environmental issues. Bartholomew warns that there is 'potential for a far greater or global episode, unless we quickly understand how social media is, for the first time, acting as the primary vector or agent of spread for conversion disorder.'"

I can't be the only one whose noticed occasioanlly, that people who know me and know my dark sense of humor/irony don't always catch my humor in a chat/posting/email. That stuff is simply hard to put accross without the usual facial queues/intonations.

There might be a correlation there because of society's increasing intolerance to blunt truth, preferring the protection of feelings instead. Sarcasm/snarkiness is the natural response to the 'face saving' and other passive aggressive tactics used to defend feelings from truth.

This is new? I've been seeing hysteria in various forms on FaceBook since I started using it 7 or 8 years ago. Hysteria about vaccines, about GMO, about diet sodas, about election results. Most of that is just an extension of the general internet mass-circulated hysteria Snopes was created to combat, but it's been there for a while.

I admit passing along physical tics like some sort of physical meme is a new one, but the hysteria vector has been there for a long time.

Truisms aside, this reminds me of the fact that they're still trying to redefine "delusions" in the DSM, because the Internet invalidated the old criteria, which went something like "Things believed by the individual, not supported by observation, and not shared with their social groups."

The internet made an avenue for crazy people to find similar crazy people, and form social connections with them, in a way that reinforced their own delusions quite directly. I don't think anyone has found a satisfactory conclusion to that problem, because they really don't want something that will classify people's religions as delusions.

Except, by no valid standards would they be considered delusional. Dawkins pejorative book-naming choices, and the collection of parrots regurgitating that, is not a serious scientific decision.

The DSM provides us with a scientific one, perfectly suitable, and it only being challenged because atheists have a fixation on not retracting their clearly-false usage. If a belief is consistent with one's widespread cultural norms (and a "culture" requires more than a handful of people congregating on the Interne

I'm an atheist myself, but "everyone is wrong about something" is an important mantra to keep in mind. The wrong is more important to human understanding than the right, because it gives you extra lenses with which to examine and expand what you already know. Free speech exists for a reason.

What if someone trusted (your parent, maybe) told you that his car turns into a dog when no one is looking and roams the neighbourhood stealing sausages, which it then turns into gasoline, and you believe it?

Suppose my father confirmed your story? And my grandmother? And my school teacher. And the neighbor. And the pastor at the church. And the mayor of my city. And the president of the united states? They all confirm it.

Yes, at that point, in the absence of good direct evidence that it WASN'T true then it

No...I'd have a harder time justifying ending another person's life, with the understanding that it's highly likely that their afterlife is going to be infinitely more horrible [wikipedia.org] than the worst possible current life they're living now. Which is why I don't own any firearms, or anything that is primarily a weapon, even of self-defense.

Rather than debate a religion I don't believe in's dogma, I'll just say that my CONCLUSION would be that there is plenty of scriptural reason for you to never assume you are capable of judging another person vis-a-vis hell.

They haven't actually made a change. It was just a serious problem raised with the diagnostic criteria, because a lot of classically delusional people were finding a social group that shared their beliefs.

It seems to fit well with Wikipedia's definition, "a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary."

Merely being "wrong" isn't sufficient to be a delusion. The sticking detail is "superior evidence to the contrary."

The problem with religion is that there isn't a lot of evidence one way or the other about the core questions of religion -- the origin of the universe and of life, what purpose we have in life, and what awaits us after death. Specific details of creation stories or certain mythical events in the past have been knocked out in many cases, but religion will not go away so long as those questions are essentially unanswerable with any degree of solid proof.

It does not get 'fundamentalists' out. Their is plenty of 'superior evidence to the contrary' regarding the Genesis creation myth for example. Bats are not birds. Pi is not 3. Jonah was not swallowed by a whale. Mohamed did not travel from Medan to Jerusalem in one night. The mountain did not come to Mohammed. The Emperor of Japan is not descended from gods. etc etc etc

Merely being "wrong" isn't sufficient to be a delusion. The sticking detail is "superior evidence to the contrary."

The problem with religion is that there isn't a lot of evidence one way or the other about the core questions of religion

The delusion isn't that "there is life after death". The delusion is that any living being knows what comes after death. The delusion is that revelation is a valid form of evidence. The delusion is that the beliefs you were indoctrinated with as a child are correct, simply because you were indoctrinated that way.

religion will not go away so long as those questions are essentially unanswerable with any degree of solid proof.

I would argue that solid direct proof isn't necessary to make an informed judgment about some probability if related / circumstantial evidence is there in abundance.

The problem is that the circumstantial evidence is of the "absence of evidence" form. I have yet to see anything persuasive that argues for a purely materialistic universe over a mostly hands-off "watchmaker" universe or a subtle, "works in mysterious way" interpretation.

[Religions are] always built not on logic or observation, but instead on emotional needs and fantasy. [...] What's wrong with just saying we don't know yet? Must people automatically assign religion/ghosts/superstition as our default answer to things we can't yet explain?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying, "I don't know." In my opinion, it's the most logical answer. It's not my answer, but it's at least one I hold a strong intellectual respect for. However, I assert that it's not unreasonable

Because things you learn by authority actually makes up a lot of what you know. Even if you haven't personally substantiated it. Everyone believes wrong things, and that is not identical to delusions, because delusions are caused by non-normal brain activity.

"This is not supported by observation" is the premise of your proof by-contradiction(that's what the cool kids are calling sarcasm now) that is flawed. Observing again and seeing things that you lost sight of is a means of (non-absolutely) demonstrating the validity of the belief.

No, cults tend to have a stronger socio-pathic center that engages in knowing manipulation. Religions tend to have the ability to self-sustain in the absence of the cult leaders. And misusing the word delusion to mean "thing you believe that's untrue" does you no service; it only serves to cloud your statement in rhetoric.

Actually, he wasn't refusing to *confess*, he was refusing to *plead* (guilty or not guilty). Because if he didn't plead, they couldn't try him, and if they couldn't try him, they couldn't convict him, and if they didn't convict him his property couldn't be confiscated. He figured he was dead already but this way his family wouldn't have to live in poverty. An amazing man, Giles Corey was.

Honestly, by all accounts, he was kind of a stubborn asshole, though his final spiteful triumph has led to him being lionized. It's worth remembering though that he was fined for beating one of his indentured servants to death over a petty theft and is said to have tangled with the law several times afterwards. He was described as "a powerful brute of a man and feared by many in the village." He also attempted to throw his wife under the bus first.

His irascible personality and conflict with the Putnams is probably the main reason he was fingered as a witch in the first place. Probably any excuse to get rid of the miserable old coot.

"the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693, the most widely recognized episode of mass hysteria in history, which ultimately saw the hanging deaths of 20 women..."

Yes, that's very peculiar.

Apparently George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobs, Sr., John Proctor, Samuel Wardwell, Giles Corey, and Roger Toothaker-- the men killed in the Salem witch hysteria-- aren't worth mentioning, because it's expected that people will only get angry about injustice if the victims are women?

"... At last all the nuns meowed together every day at a certain time for several hours together." The meowing went on until neighbors complained and soldiers were called, threatening to whip the nuns until they stopped meowing.

If they can stop whenever they want, then I have a hard time calling it a "disease." It sounds more like "being an asshole." (See also, Salem witch trials.)

"... At last all the nuns meowed together every day at a certain time for several hours together." The meowing went on until neighbors complained and soldiers were called, threatening to whip the nuns until they stopped meowing.

jeeze, trigger warnings there. You just blew the circuits of like three different groups of people while getting off another six.

Guy: Where did you hear that?
Girl: The Internet.
Guy: And you believed it?
Girl: Yeah. They can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true.
Guy: Where did you hear that?
Girl: The Internet.
Girl: Oh Look, here comes my date. I met him on the internet. He's a french model.
French Guy: Bonjour.

We've probably all read accounts of primitive cultures contacted by moderns. The primitives suffer in various ways because they aren't prepared to handle what moderns have. Aside from the microbes, they can't handle the technology sometimes. If you've read those accounts smugly, quit it. The West is not immune. The difference is that we introduced the new things to ourselves. The bad news is that these authors may be right on some level even though it sounds like they themselves are engaging in hyste

just the other day I noticed there are many church groups on facebook with people professing their belief in all the imaginary stuff that comes with church affiliation. how is this not more significant than the salem witch trials? hundreds of millions of people have been killed from this mass delusion.

in defense of the religions, people weren't actually killed _because_ of the delusions. Every homo sapiens social group that operates has a belief system of some sort and probably every single one of those is incorrect in serious ways.
And since every single social group has also killed and attacked other social groups, you don't get to blame their over-arching religion or philosophy, most of which are at odds with each other and even with themselves (being internally inconsistent). Every group has those. It's one of the ways any specific -group- is defined.

I know most folks like to blame history on socio-political issues but they are incorrect. Every group has a religion and philosophy just as every human has a spleen, a gall bladder and ligaments. Without ligaments, nothing gets done but we don't say ligaments _cause_ individual human actions.

Belief in a Creator God is a delusion but belief that religion causes the wars fought in its name is also a delusion.

There was a (bad) horror movie along this principle: people dying in their sleep from no known cause. Apparently, if people believed that "shadow people" were out to get them, a negative placebo effect would take place, and they'd actually die from the belief alone.

The protagonist trying to expose the phenomenon was convinced, at the last moment, not to, lest an epidemic result.

I can see it happening. The NSA is relatively new, so next comes the NMHPA (National Mass Hysteria Prevention Agency). They'll censor the internet systematically with advanced technology solutions and and say "No, we're not oppressing people's right to free speech. We're preventing panic caused by mass hysteria".

Richmond: You shouldn't have sent out this e-mail detailing the symptoms. You know how suggestible and easily swayed I.T. people are.
Roy: That's not true!
Richmond: Yes it is.
Roy: No you're right. Of course it is.

Please do not use the term "hysteria" as it denigrates women. That word originates from the Greek word for "uterus," with the word "hysterectomy" sharing the same lineage, and perniciously qualifies women as raving lunatics.

Not that peanut and gluten allergies don't exist, but in the past few years I've gone from knowing no one with either to running into people everywhere with one or the other. Seriously, I work with three people with gluten allergies, one guy with a peanut allergy, and the waitress who served me at a restaurant last night told me she'd never had the sandwiches there because she had a gluten allergy. Menus are popping up everywhere with gluten free options.

Schools are setting themselves up as peanut free areas and banning all peanut products even though the number of severe food reactions in a country of 310,000,000 is less than 2000 a year, with fewer than 150 deaths from all food allergies in all age groups combined. More than ten times as many people die falling down the stairs every year, but we're not mandating that schools be single-story. The rate of deaths by firearm for school-aged children is far far higher (second most likely cause of death for high-school aged children after car accidents), but we don't ban guns from homes with school-aged children or prevent school-aged from going to friends' houses where there are guns.

So, don't get me wrong - peanut allergies and gluten allergies most certainly exist, but the response in lots of places has been all out of proportion to the risk involved. I wonder if part of it has to do with the easy accessiblity of compatriots via social media. We as a species like to panic about things. I'm not immune: when my son was born preterm (he's fine now) my wife and I went into what could only be described as folie a deux about his health.

Part of the problem is the science of allergies. Or, rather, the lack thereof. Combine this with a growing awareness of allergies and a burgeoning market in telling people what they are allergic to and you get the current state of affairs. This is complicated because no one seems to have even the slightest interest in the science of the field.

An allergy, at least when I was growing up, was a reaction that ultimately resulted in anaphylactic shock. In principle, an allergy can kill you.

People are complex biological organisms that are very poorly understood. There are allergies to various environmental factors (dust mites, certain plants, etc.) and to foods (peanuts and soy are perhaps the most common). But there are other ways/reasons for a body to react poorly to environmental factors or foods. I react poorly to (something in) eggs. I have an issue with casein (which is what makes cheese good, and fake cheese lacking it bad). I'm not allergic to eggs, nor do I have a milk allergy. Nevertheless, my body functions better when I consume neither.

Allergy testing is like something out of medieval medicine. There's a common sensical understanding of it, but apparently no actual science. And if you want to make an "allergy doctor" dance, suggest that you get closely repeated testing. They don't like to admit it, but the reproducibility of allergy testing is almost non-existent and having a reasonable time interval allows insertion of vague claims such as "your body has changed". They have fluid ideas about the subject and are more interested in running tests, administering "innoculation" witch's brews, and generally making money off of the fad than actually studying the subject.

Slapping a 'mass hysteria' label on a phenomenon you cannot explain might make you feel more comfortable in your little corner of the universe, but it should not be confused with actually determining a provable cause. Mass hysteria isn't any more provable than demonic possession or alien mind control. It's a catchall for 'I give up'.

Okay, seriously? If so many people are going to hate on a field, at least have the decency to hate on the right one.

I'm tired of so many people taking this as evidence that psychology/psychiatry is wrong or over-reactive and therefore we must never pay any attention to it. First, the article's main expert is a sociologist, not a psychologist or psychiatrist. Granted, there's some overlap in the fields, but not enough that I'd trust the guy to start diagnosing or treating people. Second, as the article goes on, the other 'experts' referenced are in order: a nurse (LPN), a neurologist, another neurologist, and whatever the hell you call someone with a PhD in the history of medicine.

You'd think that if this were some sort of conspiracy by psychologists/psychiatrists to drum up legitimacy/business/interest for their field, they'd have the decency to at least provide an expert on their behalf.

Oh, not that this is entirely relevant, but just for the record, psychiatrists are MDs who specialize in mental disorders. Psychologists are PhDs who specialize in mental disorders and human behaviour. Psychologists cannot prescribe medications; so all the complaints about how psychologists are people who do nothing but a front for drug companies and push pills all the live long day? You're thinking of psychiatrists (and in my experience, there are a great many psychologists who would agree with you).

Mass hysteria isn't insanity, but a component of human reaction to peer pressure. If you haven't seen 20 different people echo the same idiotic sentiment that they wouldn't have ever had if it weren't for the other 19 before, you haven't been on the internet long.

Amusingly, you know what makes partisanship disappear? Money. [niemanlab.org] If you give a financial incentive for correct answers or for admitting ignorance, people of different political strips start giving much more similar answers rather than just spouting